Brook Highland church moving back to downtown Birmingham

Hannah Tucker-Flarity and Rob Willis are pastors of St. John's Community Church, formerly known as Brook Highland Community Church in Hoover. The church, which was founded in Birmingham in 1903, is moving to the Blackwell Building at 2427 First Ave. N. in downtown Birmingham and restoring part of its original name, St. John's German Evangelical Church.

The Hoover City Council recently annexed Brook Highland Community Church, but the church doesn’t plan to stay in Hoover long.

The congregation is selling its building and 7-acre property along Alabama 119 and plans to move back to downtown Birmingham, where the church was founded in 1903.

The Hoover property, which sits directly across Alabama 119 from the Tattersall Park development, formerly was the home of Asbury United Methodist Church before Asbury moved to a 31-acre tract of land on the other side of U.S. 280 in 1994.

Asbury sold its former building to St. John’s German Evangelical Church, which moved from downtown Birmingham to accommodate the expansion of St. Vincent’s Hospital. St. John’s changed its name to Brook Highland Community Church to fit with the nearby Brook Highland neighborhood.

But now, more than 20 years later, the congregation has dwindled to about 20 members and no longer needs a facility that size, said Jamie Flarity, one of two deacons at the church. “This building really is too big for us,” Flarity said. “We’re using only two rooms in the whole building.”

Rob Willis, one of two pastors at the church, said the building is about 8,000 square feet. It has a sanctuary, office, kitchen and five or so classrooms, he said. There are about 130 parking spaces outside.

At its peak, Brook Highland Community Church had 50 to 75 members at the Alabama 119 site, said 80-year-old Catherine Kessler, who has been a member of the church for about 60 years.

A conflict in the church more than 10 years ago resulted in about half the congregation leaving, and the pastor at that time left shortly thereafter, Kessler said.

The congregation then called Willis, who was leading a Bible study at a coffee shop in The Village at Lee Branch, to be their pastor in 2006. The result was a merger of a mostly older congregation with a younger group of believers, Willis said.

Some older members have died, and others find it difficult to make the journey to church anymore, he said. But the younger folks have married and started having children, which has added new life, he said. “That’s been really exciting for us.”

The congregation now ranges from age 2 to 94, Willis said. “The older folks and younger folks really, really love each other, and that’s been really neat to see.”

But they no longer need so much space, and the congregation is spread widely across the Birmingham metro area, from Fultondale to Leeds, Bluff Park and Alabaster.

“Absolutely nobody lives out there” in the Brook Highland area, said 77-year-old Sara Rohar, a church member who lives in Irondale.

When a real estate agent approached church members about selling, they talked and prayed about it and decided to move, Willis said.

They got a contract on a 3,000-square-foot space on the first floor of the Blackwell Building, at the corner of First Avenue North and 25th Street, that has been the home for the Ship OGRE company. The space backs up to Carrigan’s Public House on Morris Avenue.

The church hopes to close on the sale of the current property and purchase of the new property on Oct. 1 and make the move shortly thereafter, said Hannah Tucker-Flarity, the other pastor.

The downtown Birmingham space is more centrally located for church members and fits well with their ministry interests, Willis said.

Rob Willis, right, one of two pastors at the church, leads a worship service at the Hoover location.

Some church members have been involved in prison ministry and serving the homeless and hungry, and those types of ministries work well in an urban setting, Jamie Flarity said.

Some in the congregation are involved in the downtown arts community and are considering offering classes for oil painting at the new church location, Willis said.

Church members also think they will get more walk-in visitors and an exposure to a wider variety of people downtown, he said.

The church building off Alabama 119 is on a hill and not visible from the highway.

“Nobody really knows we are there,” Jamie Flarity said. Plus, people are always getting Brook Highland Community Church confused with the nearby and much bigger Church at Brook Hills and Church of the Highlands Greystone campus, he said.

Brook Highland Community Church has already changed its name to St. John’s Community Church in preparation for the move back to Birmingham, though the sign by Alabama 119 still has the old name.

The buyer of the property on Alabama 119 is asking the city of Hoover to rezone it as a community business district.

Kessler, the 80-year-old church member who lives in Bluff Park, said she’s not really into change, “but we’re praying that everything will grow” with the move.

Rohar, who is 77 and joined the church about 10 years ago, said older people see change differently.

“As we age, changes becomes more difficult, but everybody is on board with this move. It feels like a calling,” Rohar said.

“We feel like it’s God plan for our congregation,” she said. “We do feel like we are returning to the roots of the church. We’re excited about going home. It’s going to be a challenge to start up in a new location, but we’re looking forward to it. … It’s a vibrant, growing area.”

Willis said St. John’s was originally started on the St. Vincent’s Hospital site in Birmingham in 1903 as a church plant of the St. John’s Evangelical Protestant Church in Cullman with a special focus of welcoming newcomers to Birmingham.

“That’s the sort of thing we want to keep alive,” Willis said.

“We love the city,” he said. “It’s important for the body of Christ to provide hospitality to people. That’s probably one of the things we do best.”